"I write the script in December. January Josh Arnett, Marley Shelton come down fly Franken. We're shooting for 10 hours on my green screen. We shoot that opening sequence. Incredible opening sequence. ..."

"The following is a conversation with Robert Rodriguez, a legendary filmmaker and creator of Sens City, El Mariachi Desperado, Spy Kids, Machete, From Dustel Dawn, Alita, Battle Angel, The Faculty, and..."

"there was like one take and you only have one take to get it right? Oh, all the time where you're just like or just you know how long it'll take to reset and you're just But then you know what you you..."

"it'll be big and orange. Okay, we we'll shoot it in slow motion so it lasts a little longer because it just goes poof. So, I told the actors, I don't know how big this fireball is going to be, but jus..."

"radio controlled and we can't tell cuz we're shooting film, you know. So, we're like, "Oh shit, let's watch the dailies." Sure enough. Let's see if we can get maybe I can scratch the film right there...."

"there and touch that up. That's real flame that burned and it ended up looking great. So then the next week when we came back to shoot that other shot that didn't work, we came back and they had repai..."

"Where's the path to actually make something good out of this? And that's a skill, right? I call it, and it's one of my favorite stories. I was doing one of these talks and I said, "Come talk about cre..."

"go blind instinct or should you do instinct with some studying? Okay. Well I could have gone and studied and I would have found that anthologies never work. Like even when it's Copala Scorsesei, Woody..."

"amazing lesson to have because it makes you feel better about failure. Think of like The Thing by John Carpenter. You put that movie out the same weekend as ET. That thing bombed. Critics were calling..."

"know, later cuz you might not have had some information you have now that makes you look at it a lot differently. Like when I did I just uh did the audio book for Rebel Without a Crew, which I thank y..."

"released it and and did a sequel and did another sequel. If you look back in time, good thing I didn't get my way. My way had had this for a vision and it needed to do that which you would never know ..."

"Rebel Without a Crew is $7,000 movie. So, let's put it all in context. But you know, you know, you're going to hire bigger actors. You can get a big actor like Tiana Reeves for a $20 million movie. Yo..."

"would start making movies with that instead. Now I have for $8 I have a 2hour erasable tape of sound and picture. So I got into digital basically really early. I was doing which was really frowned upo..."

"my dad bought a second VCR for his business cuz I stole his other one. And I found that if I hooked them together I could play on one and use that pause button on the second. And this was the limitati..."

"But when you're a teenager, you don't know anybody who can come be your action star. And if you just bring your high school buddies, well, they just look like high school kids. So I use my little brot..."

"bucks, and it was 8 minutes. I bet I can make an 80minute movie for $8,000 if I'd use the same method. So that movie I did 6 months later I was making Mariachi cuz it opened up my mind to that I could..."

"approximation of the lens. But you could shoot slow motion. I could do reverse photography. If I filmed upside down, I could do because if I do a fast push into her, I'll never get the focus in right...."

"That's a lot. That's a lot of work. Remember I drew it. I drew it over Well I was a daily cartoonist by then, so I was pretty fast. But still, it's that's why it's only pencled. It's not inked but it ..."

"upside down. I have the strings in the back cuz you're not going to be looking at the back. And as it goes back, you pull it back and then when you reverse it, it goes and it looks so good. you can't ..."

"one take. So, my idea was this. How gangster is that? Well, it it was a test film. Right. Right. I thought it was I thought it was going to be a test film. Yeah. It's the only movie in history ever ma..."

"one take everything. I remember one time I was telling the actor, "Man, I told you to run through that shot and you and you go, oh, let me do it again." No, one take, dude. Just think about next time...."

"said, I want a guy with a guitar case full of weapons going from town to town like Road Warrior. But I don't have enough money for the first one to do that. That'll be the second movie I do. How about..."

"mariachi. Mariachi's doing a voice over. It's easy to shoot. We can do the voice later. We don't have to sing sound. There was even a scene when he walks into town where we saw these coconuts, a guy c..."

"character. Well, look, Bruce Wayne lost his parents. You could say, well, does the parents have to die? Well, no, but it's not going to propel him like it's not gonna it's not gonna drive him like tha..."

"blocking it. Mhm. And if I were to do this and I'm flowing and if I were to say, "Wow, I just wrote 10 cards. I don't know if I can write more. How did I do that?" You just shut the pipe cuz your ego ..."

"through and the ideas will come and the answers will come because it's not you. And if you can take your ego out of like you'll be blessed with this neverending flow of ideas because don't take owners..."

"that guy. Jump in. No, it's not you. You just got to be the hands. And that that that relieves a lot of pressure from you cuz then you don't have to ever have to do anything really. You just have to b..."

"another and I use almost every frame of those shots cuz I was cutting in the camera now after I shoot like let's say you know tell me your name Lex. What's your last name? Freriedman. Where do you liv..."

"ahead and record them like grabbing the bottle or any action they did, opening the suitcase, I'd have all the sound effects, too. I just had to sync it by hand. That's a lot of work for me. But I got ..."

"how do you recreate that later on a big movie is just building a rapport, making a safe zone for your actors. Quinton once told me, sometimes being, you know we're talking about directing, yeah someti..."

"are still walking behind him on the green screen setting lights. And I'm like, I'm rolling. We're ready to go. We're getting this. So, I can already tell we're already in the moment. What you're doing..."

"action connected with the actor that's because it's like a dance you end up that's so to hear remember on on Dust Till Dawn Michael Parks in the opening scene he's talking about the two guys that are ..."

"you said you had the pen in hand and you were you were there. It's crazy. It's crazy. All right. Your friendship with Tarantino is just fascinating and just the whole timeline of the history of movies..."

"a because I knew I was going to be doing a panel discussion with him. They asked us to do a panel discussion about violence and movies in the '9s even though it was only 92. So we're on a panel togeth..."

"I'll tell you what what what happened. Um I'm not I'm very shy person, you know, very shy. I'd have to go talk. I'm sure you probably feel like you're not an aator or anything, you know, just have to ..."

"that stuff, right? So then when they see the movie, in fact, I think my wife was in the audience. She said at Sundance people were laughing so much at your intro. They just wanted to hear a story like..."

"long lens pulling my own focus. When I finally had to do a real movie, I was operating the camera in my first real movie with a crew and I get the camera and a guy comes over and he focuses for you. T..."

"because when you can do anything, you come, it can be crippling. when I knew I could only use those things from Mariachi, it's like, "All right, well it's very it's very simple." Now, let me show you ..."

"directors where both the movie is genius and the process of making it is creative genius. It's like fun to watch both to know of both. You know what I believe right? It's like from somewhere else. I h..."

"filmmakers especially early on in their journey critics and the audience can destroy them meaning like it it creates too much of a burden too much uh just wear them down to where they're almost scared..."

"don't know how I'm going to do this horror movie. Like I'm just never done anything like that. You start getting you know afraid cuz you go the second thing he said, "Oh, just just just you're going t..."

"film making at a studio level because if I make even if I make a good movie if I make a great movie he's making great movies and he's getting this dog shit. I don't know if I could take it you know. S..."

"of film students don't get this job, so give up that dream." So I was like, "Oh I guess I got the best job." But then I started working with my kids when we did uh I had a TV show called Rebel Without..."

"follow on show which is where you make Red 11. Yes. So that's the one I did. So then it came time for me to do one. So I made a movie called Red 11 based on my experiences in the medical hospital. But..."

"though it's only two weeks. They've got other interests. They don't want to be filmmakers. I thought they were going to be like, all right, I'm out of here after one day. But instead, he came to me wh..."

"not ready to make my project." It's like, "You're not ready for life either. You're like this all day. You're you're dodging shit that's going on. How come art has to be perfect?" It's like, it should..."

"brain. Um, it was funny. I think uh Josh Brolan's girlfriend said, "Josh, hey, my girlfriend just said she said his wife now, but time are you guys doing drugs? You leave the set." And you come back a..."

"we have to do because we're not going to we'll be here all day and we're trying to get if we're going to worry about where they go just go boom boom boom boom boom boom boom and then we'll place the c..."

"these crazy skills. was like, "My son is, you know, conducting the orchestra the James Bond orchestra in London for the Spy Kid score, a score he wrote cuz I can't write at his level because he was al..."

"headsets? Yeah, they gave us a budget. They they they're dying for content. They gave us a budget. We shot a 20-minute action movie called The Limit with Michelle Rodriguez and Norman Reus where you'r..."

"a movie. A lot of people don't complete a movie and it still counts as a view. They may watch five minutes and change the channel. So, do you complete a movie? That's really where they, you know, real..."

"can make at a lower cost. A $20 million action film is very cheap. Studios don't know how to make them that cheap. That's why they'll pay for an independent to go do it. And right now that's the key i..."

"keep the cost down. Can I actually ask you just to focus in on action? You've created a lot of epic action films. What makes for a great action film? It comes down to the character, you know, like if ..."

"seem artificial in comparison. You know aliens, you know, we got to get off this planet now cuz this whole thing's going to blow up. You know, they like there's a timeline. So you're it's already urge..."

"twice. Let me tell you the second time it happened. One, you're making that and you go, "Okay, this is how it has to go." But then now you're invested in this person. You go, "Oh man, she has to die. ..."

"isn't my movie. This Oh, the bad guy. Oh, there's a scene in my movie where the bad guy has two girls in bed with him and they figured that was a whore house, but it was just this apartment. So, they ..."

"moment this thing and it's like cuz you feel like that way when you're when you're creating stuff like you're creating something and then now it's taking on a life on its own and like oh no now this c..."

"game because they're just swing way beyond you. Jim Cameron was like that. So, like when I first met him, I was trying to impress the hell out of him you know, because I was such a big fan. I was abou..."

"They're like, "Ah, we're going to go make the next Polyshore movie instead." You know, like we don't understand this thing. And Mirramax got it and they had just been bought by Disney. So they produce..."

"He goes, "In fact, one of my friends Simmon and said,"I want to sit you down and tell you all the things that are wrong with your movie, but I'll wait till you get back from the Can Film Festival." An..."

"story of how important proximity is. So I'm I do this painting. It's like ah fucking looks garbage. I'll show you. It looks like garbage. I'm not used I can't do paintings that are just like See, you ..."

"was I mean you've worked with him a lot and you've I mean he's one of those badass humans on the screen. You've created that. Can you just talk about what it's like creating those characters? What was..."

"Rodriguez show on Univision cuz he I was trying to practice my Spanish cuz I was having to do all these Spanish interviews cuz Mariachi was in Spanish. That was the only other part I didn't tell you. ..."

"Salma. She's her with her energy, with her passion and funny. She became instant friends with my wife. You know before they walked over, your wife and I are best friends. She already was like part of ..."

"chemistry. She just nails it. He's great. He loves her too. Studio's like "Okay, you can hire." Reluctantly like that, right? But once they saw the footage come as we were shooting and they saw it on ..."

"ain't where's when's that movie coming out?" And we're like, "It's not a real movie, but it looks real. We want to see that movie." So we finally made the movie because people just asked for it. And I..."

"room. Yeah, that's our scent. And it's real. You don't have to dress it. And it's just right there. All you do is put like a little tube there, you know, like a for his IV and then you have a couple o..."

"this before. Oh my god, I found that old video. It's like, oh my god, I already made a movie then in black and white. That's some weird shit, right? That's the magic of creativity. It's like sometimes..."

"on the day thinking on your feet. So I'm gonna show you this um this test. Okay. So, for Dust Dawn the TV series, I would always shoot the the first episode and the last episode of like a seven or eig..."

"all the bullets and shoot the guy before I hit the ground. Mhm. Okay, that's kind of a real cool like desperado type thing, but dude, this is a 7-day shoot for these episodes. Everyone on the crew wil..."

"somebody with a vision to to do the whole thing. So, this is what it would look like if you were on the set. I'm going to show you the footage and I'm going to show you the the scene. I have to show i..."

"that's my camera. I'll operate that. What's on the B camera? Steady cam. Leave it on steady cam. No chance. No time to freaking convert it. At one point, I want to lower it. So, just flip it upside do..."

"going to do that with a lens that long? It's going to be all out of focus. It's not going to be slow motion enough. He even knows me and he's like "What the hell am I doing?" Say, "Just lay on the pad..."

"everything now. I got to cut it. I got to add the sound effects myself. I got to put the music in myself cuz music guys would just end up filling it with music and ruining it. Sound effects guys would..."

"sound will play like there's multiple bullets flying. I don't need to see all those bullets or the eyes not going to know where to go. So then they got it right. Brilliant. And then check this out. I'..."

"And it's not like you have this whole plan figured out ahead. You're literally in the moment. You're it's coming through you. But you're seeing, right? I'm seeing it because I've done it enough. That'..."

"conveys the sound better, you know? I'll use different kinds of sounds that just have impact and put it somewhere like when he hits the ground or so I like playing with all that in post when I'm editi..."

"my studio. It does draw you in. It draws you in and it makes you go now think of ideas you never would have thought of before. Mainly because it has a filter. Well, now I I don't have to think of all ..."

"up, what do you do? you you start you start to put the pen to the paper and it starts just flowing. You have no choice. You have to get out of the way and open the pipe and it just comes out and you'r..."

"actor, put them into this with the power of technology into the real world. So convey all the emotion, the richness of the human face. Can you just speak to the process of bringing that world to life?..."

"photorealistic. And he goes, "Curious to see how photoreal it'll be when we're finally done with this process cuz you don't get to see it till it's almost done." And I was like, "Wow, he's just shooti..."

"let's shoot mostly live action and we'll just replace her. But we still have to figure her out. You have to cast the right actress. And when I saw Rose Salazar, she was just amazing. She made me cry a..."

"masters are all on the set, Marshall Ali, you know, you've got an amazing cast of people and that's really the the heart of it so that the technology kind of goes away. How hard is it to get the actor..."

"so little. Like, I'm literally calling the guy on the phone. How do I use this camera? You know, that's how little I knew about it. But I knew by doing the job I would learn by being both. That's real..."

"interesting in that he's so prolific. I walked into his writing studio and it'd be like on a one of the tables like you have those papers there. Imagine them that thick, that thick that thick. All scr..."

"only movie on the Sony lot being edited digitally. Mhm. Not only was I editing on a computer, I was editing in my house, which in 1994 was just unheard of. So, I'm there in my house and they made me c..."

"in its early stages and I think Soderberg looked at it and it said "Yeah, I can't afford an avid for this movie. I'm going to go do it." I think he started cutting on Premiere. But um I'm sure it's al..."

"where it was like, okay, let me splice these two sound things together and it was so hard to get it to do, but people would be like, you got that movie out of that equipment. Where now it's the other ..."

"you do soon. It's uh but it is I mean you do so many different kinds of movies. That's a whole different kind of puzzle, right? Yeah. No, but it's not a bad one. It's a good one. It's a cool It's one ..."

"this bar." Okay. Book a flight for New York. I didn't have a I fly up there. I have my laptop just like this. Yeah. I go to the bar. I show him what looks like an image from his comic and it starts mo..."

"him to do. It's all on me. I write the script in December, January. Josh Arnett, Marley Shelton come down, fly Frank in shooting for 10 hours on my green screen. We shoot that opening sequence. Incred..."

"feel like directing any any of these short ones?" I thought about directing The Big Fat Kill maybe as a short film. You should come direct that one. Shit you should direct all of them with me because ..."

"hilarious. Is that great? Yeah. Like sometimes we'd be shooting with the kids and then the afternoon Regar would come and some of the Sin City girls to finish you know shooting stuff that we needed to..."

"mean to to light like you have to have that light out of frame right now. But I could bring the lights in right here as long as it was they're not crossing it. I'm just going to take it out of the gre..."

"know like just that that lesson I had forgotten. You have to say, "I'm a non-smoker." I'm a non-smoker. So, what does a non-smoker do? If you believe you're a non-smoker, you hate smoke. Start choking..."

"It doesn't make sense to me how manifesting works, but it does seem to work. Like basically visualizing visualizing a path towards a certain kind of future. It I guess everything around you, everythin..."

"you're not like terrified cuz you're playing pretty complicated things. I've seen you play live. Yeah. And I mess up a bunch of times, but you don't want to focus on that. You just go like, "Okay I go..."

"if you say no, I don't have any doubt cuz I know I'm going to figure it out when I get there somehow. It'll fall in my lap. I trust the process. You don't have to you don't have to know. So if you tru..."

"talked about the importance of journaling because living is living. I love that phrase. I came up with that cuz it's like, "Wow, I see so many people who get after you for like filming a concert and t..."

"just went by. It went by. Like I'll ask people like, "We just had a really, what did we do last week? What did we do last Wednesday?" And they're like "I can tell you because I wrote it down but I got..."

"chair episode. I look up Michael Man. Michael man all the conversations we had since 94 that I wrote down that I felt and it's like oh my god I can't believe we said that. That's how I knew about that..."

"minds yeah what was that and they tell me and I'm like I never told you that they said, "Yeah, you told us. Well, I told you maybe 10% of that. All the rest you added." Oh, yeah. Well, we embellished ..."

"have a picture. Swear you're not going to know what it's from. Even 10 years from now, you won't know what that picture's from. You read the diary, you go, "Oh, that's what that is. Oh my god you can ..."

"time flies and like you get to a point where it's like, holy shit, it has been 10 years, has been 20 years. You had to listen to a younger version of yourself. like you it would have been hilarious if..."

"moment is because you see the fragility of it too, you know. Does it make you sad? Does it break your heart that you know the number of memories we get to create is finite? That this life ends. Eventu..."

"they when I tell people they flip out when I tell them that? Yeah. Like I said, I want a character to be like that. Like he's dying. He's like, I don't want to forget this dream. I don't want to forge..."

"to be. They don't have to have any doubt anymore. They don't have to wonder well, am I supposed to be more business-minded or can I be creative? Isn't that some kind of frivolous? Is that a real job? ..."

"back to your life at your really critical moments in your life where you went that way instead of that way, there was probably somebody there who said something to you that kind of pushed you. I there..."

"you're doing in the world, for creating in the world, and for inspiring millions of people to also be creators in the world, and for your new project that's bringing people in. Robert, I'm as I told y..."